Life As We Know It
by XxKyBo1511
Summary: Bella woke up one morning with nothing to worry about but school and coffee, but now there's so much more. She cannot figure out why the death of the school's mean girl, Tanya, has turned her world on it's head. And when she meets Tanya's brother Edward, still less makes sense. Bella is determined to find out the truth, but sometimes, even the truth is best left buried.
1. Chapter 1

_Hello there! I'm going to level with you- I have no idea where this story is going. So take it easy on me, and we can go on this journey together. I'm hoping to post a chapter every Wednesday or Thursday until we figure it out, hm?_

 _No copyright intended. Drop me a review and let me know how I'm doing on my first story ever!_

* * *

 _Prologue_

I can still remember everything about the day she died.

I was getting into my car to head to school, my hair fluttering into my face in the biting winter wind. Snow fell in gentle flakes all around me, blanketing the world in shimmery white and seeming to muffle the sounds of cars going by and children laughing. A yellow school bus was parked at the end of the street, letting on kids from the middle school located only a mile from my house. Despite the fact that it was midwinter, snowing, and only eighteen degrees, the sun shone brightly, bouncing glares off of the windshields, the street poles, and the snow. Two houses down from mine, a lone snowman stood in the middle of a yard.

For some reason, I remember that snowman with perfect clarity. Months later I could still describe it in exact detail, from the red and green stripes on the scarf, to the sixteen gray rocks making up the facial features and the shirt buttons, to the partially peeled carrot nose that looked as if it had been intended for a meal before being sneakily swiped directly from a cutting board. I remember the way the arms were lopsided, the left one stuck into the side of the snowman just two or three inches higher than the right. I remember that the middle ball making up the torso was just slightly too big, causing the bottom snowball to begin collapsing on the sides. I remember how unevenly spaced the rocks making up the mouth were. And I remember the exact pattern a spray of dirty slush from a car tire had made across the left side.

I was looking down, trying to juggle my travel mug of coffee and my school bag, and unlock the car door at the same time. Just when I got the key in the lock, my phone rang, pushing me to hurriedly throw open my door and chuck my bag onto the passenger seat. I fumbled the phone out of my jacket pocket and answered without checking the caller I.D.

"Bells?" I heard on the other line. I recognized the voice immediately as my best friend Angela, but didn't pay much attention to the sniffly quality to it, figuring it was due to the cold.

"You know," I started, slipping ungracefully into the car. I slammed the door behind me and sat back with a huff. "You literally always have the worst timing. You couldn't have called me ten minutes ago when all I was doing was reading the comics? Or twenty minutes ago when I was eating and waiting for the coffee to brew? You just had to call right as my hands were full and I was trying to get into the car." All throughout my teasing, I could hear her trying to cut in, softly saying my nickname again and again, but I just kept talking. "Next time, shoot me a warning text so I don't slip on the ice or something! I could have dropped my coffee and you _know_ how I am-."

"Isabella!" She loudly cut me off, and I immediately went quiet. Angela _never_ used my full name. Not once since we met in first grade and I told her the story behind my nickname. "Isabella," she said again, quieter, and I could feel tension building in my shoulders at the sound of her voice. I was starting to suspect more than just the cold was responsible for her sniffle.

"Angela, are you _crying?"_ I asked, prompting her to let out a little whimper. "Tell me what's wrong."

"It's Tanya." My chest tightened as my heart started pounding. I couldn't imagine what Tanya, the most popular girl and biggest bully in school, had done this time to make Angela so upset. It had to have been really bad. As I sat there, wondering what she'd done and who she'd done it to, Angela dropped a bomb on me, and life as I knew it changed. "She's dead." I stared at that lopsided, haphazard snowman, my eyes for some reason focusing on it through the falling snow and questions swirling in my head. When I didn't speak, Angela sniffled loudly again. All the breath whooshed out of me in one short gust, and I collapsed back against the seat.

"She's _dead,_ Bells."


	2. Chapter 2

Tanya Denali died early on a Friday, around three a.m.

She'd thrown a huge party the night before, taking advantage of the fact that her parents had gone out of town overnight on a business conference. Around midnight, she'd disappeared upstairs into her room with her boyfriend, Mike, making no attempts to lay low or not draw attention to herself. She stopped midway up the stairs, spun to face the crowd, threw her hands in the air, and shouted, "Party on, bitches!" Everyone cheered and someone cranked the music louder. Beer and liquor flowed freely. People chatted and laughed and danced. Cigarettes and bongs and joints and bowls were passed around, along with some stronger stuff, like little white tablets with smiley faces and baggies of white powder. Everyone was having the time of their lives.

At about one thirty in the morning, Mike reappeared at the party with a smirk on his face and a willingness to fist bump whoever in the vicinity wanted one. Tanya didn't rejoin her classmates until twenty minutes later, and the first thing she did was snatch a bottle of liquor and tip it back, much to the delight of anyone who saw. Mike approached her, they shared a long public kiss full of smugness and booze, and then they went their separate ways. Mike joined his football teammates at the beer pong table, Tanya joined the rest of the cheerleaders by the edge of the pool, and the party continued.

Around two thirty, Tanya announced to her best friend, Irina, that she had to use the bathroom and freshen up. She made sure to tell her whole group not to wait for her, to party on and have a great time. She stopped and spoke to a handful of her classmates on the way, finally disappearing into the bathroom around two forty. No one noticed anything amiss. No one followed her, or even bothered to check on her.

At three ten a.m., one of the partygoers, a soccer player named Tyler, had to use the bathroom. Tanya's house had three, but this particular classmate was too drunk to make it upstairs to the other two, so he made a beeline for the first floor bathroom. He knocked for a solid three minutes with no answer before he decided that the door was locked with no one on the inside. Three steps backwards, a deep breath, and a charge forward later, and the bathroom door flew open, ripping a sliver of wood from the doorframe. The first thing he saw was the girl on the floor. Figuring she was just drunk and passed out, his eyes blurry and unfocused due to overindulgence, he stepped over her and used the toilet. It wasn't until after he washed his hands that he thought to flip her over to try and wake her up. That's when he saw the blood.

Tanya Denali died early on a Friday, around three a.m. She locked herself in her bathroom, took one of her father's guns out of it's hiding place in the back of the linen cabinet, pressed it against her temple, and pulled the trigger. Tanya Denali took her own life, while a party raged around her, the sounds of drunk high school students and loud music drowning out the sound of the single gunshot. Tanya Denali is dead, and it was ruled a suicide when a note was found in the drawer of her bedside table, and the case was closed. Everyone mourned, but ultimately the world kept spinning and life went on.

Except mine.

I met Tanya Denali in sixth grade when she first moved to my small town of Forks, Washington. She was very rich, very pretty, and very aware of both. Due to this, on top of the fact that I was neither rich nor very pretty, we butted heads immediately. We were pretty evenly matched all through the rest of junior high, slinging childish insults back and forth and just generally being nasty to each other.

It wasn't until high school that I grew up, and she grew meaner. I stopped responding to her taunts, stopped insulting her and left her alone. She took it personally and made it her number one goal to bully me until I snapped. When that didn't work, she turned her sights on my sweet, sensitive best friend Angela. That did the trick. She found that the only way to make me angry enough to stoop to her level was to pick on Angela, and did so frequently. Her hate for me continued all the way through high school to senior year, until the day she died.

Tanya and I were never even close to being friends. We didn't even have one of those moments like some bully/bullied relationships do in the books and movies; like where the bullied happens upon a secret about the bully that makes it so obvious that they only bully to hide how truly sad and down they're feeling about their own life. We never had one of those. It was never clear to me exactly why she was so mean, other than the usual excuses of conceited condescension and that misery brought her happiness.

Due to this, it never made sense to anyone why I was so torn up over Tanya's death. No one understood why I cried myself to sleep for days, and walked around school like a zombie. Honestly, it didn't make any sense to me, either. All I knew was that Tanya was like the sun: a shining, bright ball of energy that warmed the people close to her, and yet left everyone else burned and blistered if the proper precautions weren't taken. She was a force of nature, blowing through the hallways and turning heads as she went. She was a proud, beautiful, _young_ girl with her whole life ahead of her. And then, out of absolutely nowhere, she was gone. Poof. Just like that. In a cloud of gunpowder and questions. It was like the sun was snuffed out, or all the air had been sucked into a vacuum. Her absence was a tangible thing in the hallways of my high school, and for some reason, I was one of the ones who felt it the most.

The day Angela had called me to tell me about Tanya, the school shut down. So many parents had called their kid in with grief related illness (most of which were probably from kids that didn't particularly care and just wanted to extend their weekend) that half the school was going to be absent anyway. No one saw any point in showing up and going through the motions.

I, on the other hand, sat in my car for twenty minutes while Angela cried into my ear, and then drove the seven and a half minutes to the school parking lot. And for two hours I just stared, unable to cry but really wanting to. At the football field, with their two stories worth of stainless steel bleachers blanketed in ice. At the building, the grey bricks shimmering through my windshield in the heat coming off the hood of my car. At the parking lot, usually packed and teeming with rowdy high schoolers, sitting totally empty for hours after the first period bell was scheduled to ring. Everything I'd been seeing for the last four years of my life, exactly the same as it had always been, and yet so different it was barely recognizable.

It was sitting there, staring at my surroundings, that I first saw Tanya's older brother, who I'd only ever seen in pictures and from afar at family functions the school threw for the students. He was sitting on the front step of the school, leaning against the brick with his shoulders hunched. As I️ watched, he dropped his head forward, heaved in what looked like a sob, and smacked his head backwards so hard that the baseball cap he was wearing fell off. My heart broke for him as he did it again, and then a third and fourth time. I️ debated jumping up and running to him before he gave himself a concussion, but before I️ could, he stood and swiped his cap off the ground, yanking it onto his head and pulling the bill down to cover his eyes. He stood motionless, staring into the football stadium, before bending and scooping up a handful of snow. He used his hands to pack it into a ball and, without warning, launched it at the glass doors. The snow hit the doors with a _thwack,_ breaking into pieces and scattering in the wind. I was captivated by the droplets of water left behind as they slid down the glass.

My eyes were so riveted by the sight that I didn't notice the exact moment he noticed me. I didn't know he even cared about his audience until, only moments later, he was rapping his knuckles against my car window. I jumped, almost giving myself whiplash as I jerked my head around to face him.

"The schools closed!" he shouted angrily through my still-closed window. I could see the icy tear tracks on his cheeks, and my emotionally muddled brain wondered if they burned his face, and if he'd be embarrassed that a stranger was witnessing his grief. When I didn't respond to his declaration, he knocked on the window again, harder than before. "Hello?! Anybody home?!" I felt the corner of my mouth pull down in a frown, but fought against the response I wanted to spew back for his rudeness. I knew how upset he must be, and that pain sometimes makes people say and do things they don't mean.

"I know," I whispered back. His eyes focused on my mouth, and his eyebrows pulled down in what looked like frustration.

"I can't hear you!" I took a deep breath, still fighting the temptation to lash out, and rolled my window down a crack.

"I said I know. I know it's closed." He stared at me for a second, and tilted his head to the side. Despite the inappropriate timing, my heart fluttered a little, and that's when I really looked at the boy in front of me.

He was absolutely gorgeous. Granted, I knew that, as it wasn't the first time I was seeing him. But I'd never seen him so up close and personal before. I didn't know that his auburn hair looked so soft where it fell out from beneath the baseball cap. I didn't know that his jawline was so defined, or how sexy it looked with a light dusting of scruff. I'd never known his eyes were that shade of green, or that he had the most beautiful lashes I'd ever seen. His nose must have been broken at some point, because there was a slight bump on the bridge. It took me all of my willpower to keep from scanning my eyes down his body to take in the rest of him, but somehow I managed.

"Who are you?" I snapped out of my thoughts at his angrily spat words and met his eyes, sucking my lower lip into my mouth to chew on it. I knew who he was in theory, but I didn't really know anything about him. All I knew was that he was Tanya's older brother, and that he went to an all boy's school a town away when they moved here because they had a better baseball team. I didn't even know his name, and that made me uncomfortable with the idea of giving him mine.

"I go here," I said instead, hoping he'd leave it at that. Instead, he sighed and leaned against my car like he could no longer hold himself upright. My heart ached for him, and my hesitance to talk to him began to fade.

"I figured that much. Do you know _why_ the school's closed?" he asked, and I could hear reluctance in his voice. I met his eyes again, and the wariness and hurt in his gaze melted away the rest of my self-preservation.

"Yes, I know. I know who you are, too. I can leave if you want me to, if you want to be alone," I murmured gently. He lifted his head and pressed his chin against the doorframe of my car, and I could see the skin turning white from the pressure. He mumbled something, but I couldn't make out what he said. "I'm sorry, I can't hear you. Do you want me to leave?" He didn't move for a long moment, and then he sighed and dropped his forehead against the car where his chin had been, the smacking sound making me flinch.

"Being alone is the last thing I want right now, but that's no one's problem but my own." With that, he pushed away from my car, turned his back, and started walking away. The way his shoulders sagged and his head dropped dejectedly officially shattered my already battered heart, and I didn't stop to think. I threw the car into drive and pulled up next to where he was walking, rolling down the passenger side window all the way. He stopped and turned his head to look at me, but I couldn't see his eyes underneath the brim of his hat.

"I don't have anything to do today. We don't have to say a word, if you don't want to. But I don't really want to be alone either, so if you'd like some company, I'm free." He didn't move or say a word for what felt like forever, and I was beginning to feel uncomfortable. I was just about to apologize and drive away when he took a hesitant step towards my car, and then stopped. I pressed the button on my door to unlock the car, and watched as one corner of his lovely lips pulled gently upwards before he took the final steps and threw my door open. He plopped heavily down in the seat next to me and closed the door before he turned to meet my eyes, pushing the bill of his hat upwards.

We stared at each other wordlessly for a long second, before I smiled and turned away. I had no idea where we were going, but I knew what we were running from. And as I drove out of the parking lot, I could feel the boy next to me relaxing in his seat as the school and all the memories and ghosts it held faded out of sight.


	3. Chapter 3

We drove for over an hour without stopping in total silence.

I could occasionally feel his eyes on me, but I refused to be the first one to speak. I debated putting the radio on, but decided not to again and again, unsure of if it'd make the silence better or worse. It surprisingly wasn't uncomfortable, despite the fact that I was driving aimlessly with a total stranger in my car who'd just lost his sister. I kept waiting for him to say something, ask me my name or tell me where to drop him off. But when he didn't, I just kept driving, eventually taking a turn that brought us somewhere I didn't recognize. Cute little shops lined the snow covered street, and people walked with their heads bowed down against the icy wind. I pulled up to a red light and noticed a sign for a diner, boasting about having the "World's Best Coffee," and I could feel my mouth water just thinking about it. I'd been so distracted by Angela and everything that was happening that I hadn't finished my coffee, and there was no chance it was palatable now.

I hesitantly cleared my throat, preparing myself to speak for the first time since he got in my car. "Um," I started, keeping my eyes lowered as he turned to look at me. I didn't know what kind of emotion would be in his lovely eyes, and I didn't want to risk losing my train of thought. "I didn't get to finish my coffee this morning, and I could really go for some. We could stop at that diner, maybe get some lunch if you want?" I waited for him to respond, and when he didn't, I lifted my head to see if I could read his expression. His cheeks were still rosy despite the heat in my car, but the dried tear tracks were gone, and his eyes were dark with an emotion I couldn't figure out exactly. Once I met his gaze, he spoke.

"I don't have my wallet. I left it at home when I left this morning." His voice was gruff, like he was on he verge of crying again, and I fought the urge to reach out and touch him. I didn't know if he'd find that comforting, so I kept my hands to myself and smiled gently.

"That's okay. My treat. Consider the stop a favor to me, because seriously, I need some coffee." He turned and looked at the diner quickly before nodding in my direction without looking back at me, and I pulled into the parking lot and into the first spot I could find. We climbed out of the car, and I was surprised to find him waiting at the trunk for me. I started to smile, but that was when I got my first good look at him that I'd denied myself back at the school.

His body definitely matched his face. He was broad shouldered, filling out a dark blue zip up jacket very nicely. His jeans were clearly well loved by how worn and faded the color was, and fit him so perfectly my mouth almost started watering, and not from the delicious scent of fresh brewed coffee wafting from the diner. His feet were encased in scuffed up black sneakers, and the whole ensemble was wrapped up nicely by the baseball cap he'd turned backwards on his head at some point while we were driving. He was the kind of boy Angela and I would drool over from afar, but never have the guts to actually speak to. And definitely not the type that'd ever want someone like me.

That thought actually brought me comfort due to the situation we were in. He was less threatening when I realized how truly out of my league he was physically, and I relaxed just a bit more.

"Ready?" I asked. He nodded and gestured with his hand that I should go first, and he followed me silently into the diner. We picked a booth in the back, and I took a look around while the wonderful heat warmed my chilled body. The diner was named Patty's Pancakes and Pies, and had a 50's feel to the décor. There was a jukebox in the corner, softly crooning out lyric-less blues music, and the booths and chairs were furnished in red vinyl. The floor was checked tile, and the counter and visible appliances were all stainless steel, scuffed with wear and tear from years of use. I immediately liked the atmosphere, and felt myself calming even further.

We weren't alone for long before our waiter walked up to the table. He was cute, more my type with shaggy blonde hair and freckles across the bridge of his nose. He was wearing a black t-shirt with the diner's name in cursive across the chest, and old dark jeans with a rip in the knee. I looked at him with a small grin, and noticed he was side-eyeing my lunch companion with clear appreciation in his eyes. My smile widened of it's own accord as I wondered if the boy across the table noticed, too.

"Hello, and welcome to Patty's. Can I get you folks something to drink?" He turned and looked at me, basically putting his back to my lunch date, and I fought back a giggle. Clearly he was too flustered by the good looking boy across from me to speak to him directly, and I totally understood.

"Coffee for me please," I responded with a wink, and he blushed adorably before looking down at the table.

"And you, sir?" he asked the small ketchup stain on the corner of our table. I turned my head and looked at the boy whose name I really should have known by that point, and was taken aback by the irritation I saw on his face.

"Um, I'll have a coffee, too." Our waiter cleared his throat and nodded before rushing off without a word to get our drinks. My lunch companion met my eyes, and I raised an eyebrow at him. "What?" he asked, and I shook my head. 'Are you okay?' was the question I wanted to ask, but I knew how stupid that would be with the situation he was in. I knew he more than likely wasn't okay.

"I feel like I should introduce myself," I replied, and was rewarded with the cutest little smile in return. I felt my cheeks redden in a blush, and moronically stuck my hand out to the guy I'd just spent over an hour with in my car. "I'm Isabella, but my friends call me Bella." He looked down at my hand and then back at me as he reached out to take it. His large palm absolutely encased mine, and the cool temperature of his skin and the calluses on his fingers caused a chill to run down my spine.

"I'm Edward." He gently squeezed my fingers once before pulling away, and my hand felt three degrees colder as soon as his skin was no longer touching mine. We smiled at each other for a second before I broke eye contact and reached for a menu, sliding his across the table to him. I scanned the menu for a moment, feeling like his eyes were burning a hole into the top of my head. Right when I was about to gather the courage to look up, our waiter was back with a carafe of fresh smelling coffee, and I nearly wept as he filled my mug with the steaming liquid. I immediately got to work while he filled Edward's cup, dumping in one container of creamer, then half a packet of sugar, stirring it for ten seconds, and then adding a second packet of creamer and the rest of the sugar packet. I lifted the mug, cradling it between both hands, and inhaled deeply before bringing it to my lips and taking a small sip. My eyes closed in ecstasy as I sighed, and I heard a masculine chuckle from across the table. I squinted one eye open and was blown away by the sight of a true smile on Edward's face.

It was absolutely breathtaking.

"What?" I asked stupidly, referring to the glorious sight of that boyish grin. His lips were full and perfect, and his smile was just slightly lopsided, raising higher on the left than the right. It created the most perfect dimple in his cheek and a cleft in his chin, and his eyes sparkled with humor. I'd never seen anything more beautiful on a man's face in my life.

"You kind of like coffee, huh?" I narrowed my eyes at him, wondering if he was making fun of me.

"Making the perfect cup of coffee is an art, and should be treated as such. If you do one step incorrectly, the whole cup is a waste. And wasting coffee is sacrilege." He stared at me for a moment in silence, and then started to chuckle. Without breaking eye contact, he grabbed a few sugar packets, tore the tops off, and proceeded to dump every granule into the cup in front of him. I could feel my jaw drop as he reached for creamer next, and I didn't even think before I was reaching across the table and smacking his hand away from the small dish. "No!" I exclaimed. "What do you think you're doing?" He stared at me wide eyed, clenching and unclenching his hand like I'd actually caused him pain. "I'm sorry if I hurt you, but did you not hear a word I just said?"

"I didn't think you were that serious!" he laughed. "Especially not about someone else's coffee!" I rolled my eyes and brought my mug to my mouth, taking a small sip. As soon as the warmth hit my tongue, my eyes rolled back and I sighed happily, releasing a small hum of pleasure. When I looked back at Edward, he was looking at me with something in his eyes that I couldn't read.

"Take a sip of your coffee," I demanded, raising an eyebrow when he continued to stare at me. His gaze was focused on my mouth, and I surreptitiously wipe my chin with my sleeve, hoping to clean off whatever he was looking at. He blinked twice and met my eyes.

"Hm?"

"I said, take a sip of your coffee," I repeated. He quickly lifted his mug to his face and took a deep sip without breaking eye contact, and I smirked. "Was it any good?" He shook his head, and my smile widened in triumph. But before I could get another word in, he spoke.

"Only because you didn't let me put any creamer in." I shook my head and sighed.

"Creamer would not have helped that poor cup of coffee you murdered with your-," I reached across the table and sifted through the empty packets in front of him, counting out loud, "four, fix, _six_ packets of sugar you so carelessly dumped in there. You've already ruined it, so go ahead. Add your creamer and taste it again." He pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes, reaching cautiously towards the creamer. When he realized I wasn't going to hit him again, he swiped three from the dish and hurriedly dumped them into his mug, mixed it with his butter knife for a few seconds, and took a sip. "How is it?" I asked.

"Just how I like it," he replied. I shook my head sadly and held my cup out to him.

"Now taste this." He laughed again but made no move to take it. "No, seriously. Taste my perfectly doctored cup of coffee, made with love and expertise. Go on." His lips pulled up into another glorious smile, and he took the cup of coffee. He lifted it to his mouth and took a small sip without removing his gaze from mine, which gave me the satisfaction of watching his eyebrows lift as it touched his tongue for the first time. "Good, right?" I asked, and he nodded. "Told you, now give it back." I reached across the table, but he pushed my hands away, turning towards the window so I couldn't stop him while he chugged from my cup. I laughed and wrestled with him for a minute before giving in and letting him finish my coffee.

It was the first time since he'd gotten in my car that I saw no pain in his eyes, and I couldn't bear to take that moment away from him just yet. Not when he'd be returning to a reality where his sister was gone.

"That's good coffee," he said, handing me my completely empty cup. I pouted at him and looked sadly into the mug, causing him to smile. "Sorry I finished yours, want mine?" I laughed and shook my head.

"Thanks, but no thanks. I'm going to teach you how to do it, so you never have to have another cup of failure again."

And for the next four hours, amidst conversation about anything and everything we could think of, that's what I did.


End file.
